ditty of the ancient days:

“There all the countrymen are rich;

they heap up silver by the spadeful!

To those we sing to will come Good

12 and Glory!” But portends bereavements

the pitiful tune of this dit:

to maidens’ hearts sweeter is “Kit.”29

IX

The night is frosty; the whole sky is clear;

the splendid choir of heavenly luminaries

so gently, so unisonally flows….

4 Tatiana, in her low-cut frock,

into the wide courtyard comes out;

she trains a mirror on the moon;

but in the dark glass only

8 the sad moon trembles….

Hark!… the snow creaks… a passer-by; the maiden

flits up to him on tiptoe —

and her little voice sounds

12 more tender than a reed pipe’s strain:

“What is your name?”30 He looks,

and answers: “Agafón.”

X

On the nurse’s advice, Tatiana,

planning that night to conjure,

has ordered in the bathhouse secretly

4 a table to be laid for two.

But suddenly Tatiana is afraid….

And I — at the thought of Svetlana —

I am afraid; so let it be…

8 we’re not to conjure with Tatiana.

Tatiana has removed

her silken sash, undressed,

and gone to bed. Lel hovers over her,

12 while under her pillow of down

there lies a maiden’s looking glass.

Now all is hushed. Tatiana sleeps.

XI

And dreams a wondrous dream Tatiana.

She dreams that she

over a snowy lawn is walking,

4 surrounded by sad gloom.

In front of her, between the snowdrifts,

dins, swirls its wave

a churning, dark, and hoary torrent,

8 by the winter not chained; two thin poles, glued

together by a piece of ice

(a shaky, perilous small bridge),

are laid across the torrent; and before

12 the dinning deep,

full of perplexity,

she stopped.

XII

As at a vexing separation,

Tatiana murmurs at the brook;

sees nobody who from the other side

4 might offer her a hand.

But suddenly a snowdrift stirred,

and who appeared from under it?

A large bear with a ruffled coat;

8 Tatiana uttered “Ach!” and he went roaring

and a paw with sharp claws

stretched out to her. Nerving herself,

she leaned on it with trembling hand

12 and worked her way with apprehensive steps

across the brook; walked on —

and what then? The bear followed her.

XIII

She, to look back not daring,

accelerates her hasty step;

but from the shaggy footman

4 can in no way escape;

grunting, the odious bear keeps lumbering on.

Before them is a wood; the pines

are stirless in their frowning beauty;

8 all their boughs are weighed down

by snow flocks; through the summits

of aspens, birches, lindens bare

the beam of the night luminaries shines;

12 there is no path; shrubs, precipices, all

are drifted over by the blizzard,

plunged deep in snow.

XIV

Into the forest goes Tatiana; the bear follows;

up to her knee comes yielding snow;

now by the neck a long branch suddenly

4 catches her, or by force it tears

out of her ears their golden pendants;

now in the crumbly snow sticks fast

a small wet shoe come off her charming foot;

8 now she lets fall her handkerchief —

she has no time to pick it up,

is frightened, hears the bear behind her,

and even is too shy to raise

12 with tremulous hand the hem of her dress;

she runs; he keeps behind her;

and then she has no force to run.

XV

Into the snow she’s fallen; the bear deftly

snatches her up and carries her;

she is insensibly submissive;

4 stirs not, breathes not;

he rushes her along a forest road;

sudden, ‘mongst trees, there is a humble hut;

dense wildwood all around; from every side

8 ’tis drifted over with desolate snow,

and brightly glows a window;

and in the hut are cries and noise;

the bear quoth: “Here’s my gossip,

12 do warm yourself a little in his home!”

and straight he goes into the hallway

and on the threshold lays her down.

XVI

Tatiana comes to, looks:

no bear; she’s in a hallway;

behind the door there’s shouting and the jingle

4 of glasses as at some big funeral.

Perceiving not a drop of sense in this,

she furtively looks through the chink

— and what then? She sees… at a table

8 monsters are seated in a circle:

one horned and dog-faced;

another with a rooster’s head;

here is a witch with a goat’s beard;

12 here, prim and proud, a skeleton;

yonder, a dwarf with a small tail; and there,

something half crane, half cat.

XVII

More frightful still, and still more wondrous:

there is a crab astride a spider;

there on a goose’s neck

4 twirls a red-calpacked skull;

there a windmill the squat-jig dances

and rasps and waves its vanes.

Barks, laughter, singing, whistling, claps,

8 the parle of man, the stamp of steed!31

But what were the thoughts of Tatiana

when ‘mongst the guests she recognized

him who was dear to her and awesome —

12 the hero of our novel!

Onegin at the table sits

and through the door stealthily gazes.

XVIII

He gives the signal — and all bustle;

he drinks — all drink and all cry out;

he laughs — all burst out laughing;

4 knits his brows — all are silent;

he is the master there, ’tis plain;

and Tanya is already not so awestruck,

and being curious now she opens

8 the door a little….

Sudden the wind blows, putting out

the light of the nocturnal flambeaux;

the gang of goblins flinches;

12 Onegin, his eyes flashing,

making a clatter rises from the table;

all rise; he marches to the door.

XIX

And fear assails her; hastily

Tatiana strains to flee:

not possible; impatiently

4 tossing about, she wants to scream —

cannot; Eugene has pushed the door,

and to the gaze of the infernal specters

the girl appears; ferocious laughter

8 wildly resounds; the eyes of all,

hooves, curved proboscises,

tufted tails, tusks,

mustaches, bloody tongues,

12 horns, and fingers of bone —

all point as one at her,

and everybody cries: “Mine! Mine!”

XX

“Mine!” Eugene fiercely said,

and in a trice the whole gang vanished;

the youthful maid remained with him

4 twain in the frosty dark;

Onegin gently draws Tatiana32

into a corner and deposits her

upon a shaky bench

8 and lets his head sink on her shoulder;

all of a sudden Olga enters,

followed by Lenski; light gleams forth;

Onegin brings back his raised arm

12 and wildly his eyes roam,

and he berates the unbidden guests;

Tatiana lies barely alive.

XXI

The argument grows louder, louder: Eugene

suddenly snatches a long knife, and Lenski

forthwith is felled; the shadows awesomely

4 have thickened; an excruciating cry

resounds… the cabin lurches…

and Tanya wakes in terror….

She looks — ’tis light already in the room;

8 dawn’s crimson ray

plays in the window through the frozen pane;

the door opens. Olga flits in to her

rosier than Northern Aurora

12 and lighter than a swallow. “Well,”

she says, “do tell me,

whom did you see in dream?”

XXII

But she, not noticing her sister,

lies with a book in bed,

page after page

4 keeps turning over, and says nothing.

Although that book displayed

neither the sweet inventions of a poet,

nor sapient truths, nor pictures,

8 yet neither Virgil, nor Racine, nor Scott, nor Byron,

nor Seneca, nor even

the Magazine of Ladies’ Fashions

ever engrossed anybody so much:

12 it was, friends, Martin Zadeck,33

head of Chaldean sages,

divinistre, interpreter of dreams.

XXIII

This profound work

a roving trader had one day

peddled into their solitude,

4 and for Tatiana finally

with a broken set of Malvina

had ceded for three rubles fifty,

moreover taking for them a collection

8 of vulgar fables,

a grammar,

two “Petriads,” plus Marmontel, tome three.

Later with Tanya Martin Zadeck

12 became a favorite. He gives her joyance

in all her sorrows and beside her,

never absenting himself, sleeps.

XXIV

The dream disturbs her.

Not knowing what to make of it,

the import of the dread chimera

4 Tatiana wishes to discover.

Tatiana finds in the brief index,

in alphabetic order,

the words: bear, blizzard, bridge,

8 dark, fir, fir forest, hedgehog, raven, storm,

and so forth. Martin Zadeck

will not resolve her doubts,

but the ominous dream portends

12 to her a lot of sad adventures.

For several days thereafter she

kept worrying about it.

XXV

But lo, with crimson hand34

Aurora from the morning dales

leads forth, with the sun, after her

4 the merry name-day festival.

Since morn Dame Larin’s house is full

of guests; in entire families

the neighbors have converged, in sledded coaches,

8 kibitkas, britskas, sleighs.

There’s in the vestibule jostling, commotion;

there’s in the drawing room the meeting of new people,

the bark of pugs, girls’ smacking kisses,

12 noise, laughter, a crush at the threshold,

the bows, the scraping of the guests,

wet nurses’ shouts, and children’s cry.

XXVI

With his well-nourished spouse

there came fat Pustyakóv;

Gvozdín, an admirable landlord,

4 owner of destitute muzhiks;

a gray-haired couple, the Skotínins,

with children of all ages, counting

from thirty years to two;

8 the district fopling, Petushkóv;

Buyánov, my first cousin,

covered with fluff, in a peaked cap35

(as he, of course, is known to you);

12 and the retired counselor Flyánov,

a heavy scandalmonger, an old rogue,

glutton, bribetaker, and buffoon.

XXVII

With the family of Panfíl Harlikóv

there also came Monsieur Triquét,

a wit, late from Tambóv,

4 bespectacled and russet-wigged.

As a true Frenchman, in his pocket

Triquet has brought a stanza for Tatiana

fitting an air to children known:

8 “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”

Among an almanac’s decrepit songs

this stanza had been printed;

Triquet — resourceful poet —

12 out of the dust brought it to light

and boldly in the place of “belle Niná”

put “belle Tatianá.”

XXVIII

And now from the near borough,

the idol of ripe misses,

the joy of district mothers,

4 a Company Commander has arrived;

he enters…. Ah, news — and what news!

there will be regimental music:

“the Colonel’s sending it himself.”

8 What fun! There is to be a ball!

The young things skip beforehand.36

But dinner’s served. In pairs,

they go to table, arm in arm.

12 The misses cluster near Tatiana,

the men are opposite; and the crowd buzzes

as all, crossing themselves, sit down to table.

XXIX

Talks for a moment have subsided;

mouths chew. On all sides plates

and covers clatter, and the jingle

4 of rummers sounds.

But soon the guests raise by degrees

a general hullabaloo.

None listens; they shout, laugh,

8 dispute, and squeal. All of a sudden —

the door leaves are flung open: Lenski

comes in, and with him [comes] Onegin. “Oh, my Maker!”

cries out the lady of the house. “At last!”

12 The guests make room, each moves aside

covers, chairs quick;

they call, they seat the pair of friends

XXX

— seat them directly facing Tanya,

and paler than the morning moon,

and more tremulous than the hunted doe,

4 her darkening eyes

she does not raise. In her stormily pulses

a passionate glow; she suffocates, feels faint;

the two friends’ greetings

8 she hears not; the tears from her eyes

are on the point of trickling; the poor thing

is on the point of swooning;

but will and reason’s power

12 prevailed. A word or two

she uttered through her teeth in a low voice

and managed to